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My account does not allow me to work with THB or withdraw to Thai banks, but that might just be because I have a European account, and am therefore limited to SEPA and friends.

Maybe if you did a bit if research, you would also stop buying ????

With your concept video of the VR goggles, I tried to figure out if any hardware is actually produced (in which case, I could maybe understand why they are raising capital), or if it’s just “blockchain all the way down”, and I found this blurb about one of the Holo co-founders: “Brock has prior experience coding alternative currency systems as the founder of Geek Gene, a company that developed […] more than 100 alternative currency solutions” ???? Amazing résumé, it’s like: Buy this bridge from George C. Parker, his track record selling bridges is phenomenal!

You can set limits on debit cards, even different limits for ATM withdrawal, contactless, PIN & chip, swipe, and “card not present” (that would be the most likely candidate for fraud). Several banks allow you to set this yourself in their banking app. Some also allow you to lock and unlock your card. For example my KTB card is currently locked, as I am not in Thailand. Loans to customers still need to be covered by capital (deposits + shareholder equity), and non-secured loans are still given at rates closer to 10% than 0%, despite the negative interests we are seeing. Banks are certainly hurt by the tightening regulation and capital requirements, but plenty of profit is still being made. I am not really sure what you are concerned about regarding “life as an expat”. Also, as more and more commerce is happening via payment cards/online, banks get a larger and larger cut of the entire economy. That said, for a simple bank, it still seems lending is the main driver of profit.

Fraud is fraud, and should be covered by the bank in most of Europe. I think it is more about chargebacks where U.S. banks seem more happy to comply with customer’s request to dispute a charge. But in a lot of countries we tend to use debit cards (not prepaid cards), but we never really thought of it that way. You get a payment card linked to your bank account, if you need credit, you setup a credit for your bank account, and can access it via your payment card. Since many countries have their own national system for cards, often with their own name, e.g. in Germany it has changed a few times, but used to be EC-Karte and is now Girocard, so when translating that to English, we just call it “credit card” because that is what the Americans seems to call these cards, and many Europeans are, or at least used to be, completely unaware of the distinction between debit and credit. Over the last 5-10 years though, VISA and Mastercard have become prevalent in Europe, so now the word “debit” has started to appear in banks’ card offerings.

I undersand this “get rich quick via pump’n’dumps” quite well. But I expected more from you, so when you wrote: “I've been saying that EGLD is the new BTC […] I'd highly recomend buying EGLD” you were just looking for greater fools to help you pump the coin before you would cash out. Shameless! This puts an end to all discussions here about what crypto is, because it is not the future of money, it is not a store of wealth, it is just a vehicle for greater fool games.

Looks like the typical pump’n’dump, but hey, who cares about the price when this coin is the future of money with its fast transaction speeds and low fees, or whatever you told us made this better than the ten thousand other coins.

Did you make sure to ask for debit card? My experience is that they will gladly hand these out, as there is a yearly fee of at least 200 baht, but they may try to up sell you on a more expensive card. A credit card OTOH is much harder to get as a foreigner (from what I hear). Though if you really can’t get a debit card from your bank then I would second (or third) the recommendations for the Wise Mastercard. Only downside with Wise is that money on your account can only be spent or withdrawn via the Mastercard, if you wish to transfer money to another bank, there is a small “balance transfer fee”, though you can transfer to other Wise users free of charge.

So much for bitcoin as a store of value. For comparison, gold is not down 20% because of the new variant of covid-19.

Imagine there was no deposit insurance in Thailand and the CFO of Kasikorn Bank got arrested for fraud together with 7 other people, you don’t think that would trigger a bank run on Kasikorn? Though you are right in practice, nobody invested in crypto cares about this stuff. It has since been confirmed that the rumors were correct, Celsius Network initially called their CFO “an ex-employee” since they have now suspended him, and instead of “arrested for fraud” they called it “involved in a police investigation”. Around the same time, Tether minted another billion USDT, I am sure it is secured by actual U.S. dollars — but we might learn more about that soon, as Congress has sent a letter to Tether asking about how securities are held, how redemption of USDT works, etc., although I think Tether will just ignore this letter, and once again, nobody in crypto will care, even though Tether’s claimed holdings have exceeded those of Bernie Madoff, but everybody seems to agree that the money is not there, but who cares, we are all going to be rich! ????

More relevant for crypto is the rumored arrest of Mr. Yaron Shalem, CFO of Celsius Network. Not that anyone invested in crypto in general seems concerned about what goes on behind the scene, but it has previously been revealed that Celsius Network borrowed a billion in USDT from Tether and that Tether take bitcoin as security for their loans. Can anyone who is critical of “money printing” or fractional reserve banking please explain to me, how what goes on with USDT is an improvement of the current system?

Problem with money in Thailand is that it is not straightforward how to get it out again *and* (more importantly) CRS has been announced a few times, they do seem to have postponed it, but it will probably come sooner or later, and once it does, your government may learn about any accounts you have in Thailand, which may prompt them to request your history with that bank, to see what you had with that bank in the past. I.e. once CRS comes, if you have funds you want to hide, you shouldn’t just move them (out of Thailand, which may not be easy), you should also terminate your relationship with the bank that held these money.

Does that mean it is the bank’s job to keep track of how much of the money brought into the country, has been spent on condos (and which of them, might have been sold again)?

Goal stated in the article is “to channel [tourist’s] money directly […] without agents or brokers”, so they do a pilot run in Pattaya or Patong and service providers can offer tits for TAT coin without a middleman, seems like a very apt name to me ????

I have zero experience with Thai banks, but other banks (that I know) generally want a “custody fee”, i.e. some percentage (like 0.1%-0.25%) of the value of invested funds as a yearly fee for storing your securities, and their commission for executing trades also tend to be higher than the dedicated brokers. So I would highly recommend looking for a dedicated broker service. It does seem like Interactive Brokers is available in Thailand. Though my account with IB does not support exchanging to/from THB, but maybe this is different if you sign up as a Thai citizen/resident. Also, Interactive Brokers is not the most user friendly platform for beginners.

No more dodgy than the 10,000+ other coins.

OK, sounds a little crazy, but I guess for you, better safe than sorry (or dead)… In practice, having a bank account in your own name is by far the easiest, cheapest, and most flexible. But you have to worry about CRS regulation, i.e. does your country have a bilateral agreement to exchange information about foreign deposits, and if not, is there a chance they will get one in the future? I know we often hear that rich people use corporations to hide their wealth, but corporations come with all sorts of obligations (tax/vat reporting, bookkeeping/audits, minimum government taxes/fees, etc.) and governments generally don’t like corporations that report zero income / negative profit. You also need a way to get money out of the corporation, so you either need to invoice it for services rendered (in which case you are now self employed, so extra paperwork for you), or hire yourself as an employee (in which case the company now needs to handle wages and all what that could include, e.g. withholding tax, social security, retirement, etc.). I think a discretionary trust is more suitable for your purpose. I.e. you place all the money in a trust and make yourself the beneficiary. I got a price for this 5+ years ago, and the set up cost was €5-6,000 with annual fees of €2,500. This was from a guy who does this stuff for a living, and which I have known for about 10 years. Another option is to find someone in South East Asia that would act as your account holder, and then open bank account in a developed country, with their ID. Just make sure they are not liable for tax evasion, but I think most countries in SEA don’t care about money received/held abroad.

SWIFT itself is just a messaging system, so while bank A and bank B can both be communicating via SWIFT, this itself does not move any money. For this, bank A needs a nostro account with bank B, or, in lack of such account, go via a third party. It’s generally when third parties are involved, that delays occur, and basically any smaller bank will need to go through a third party. The G20 has made enhancing cross-border payments a priority during the 2020 Saudi Arabian Presidency, and they have developed 19 building blocks for this to happen, none of which though have anything to do with CBDC. You can read their report here (PDF), they go through many of the problems, and it’s about regulation (which is different in different jurisdictions), legacy systems that only run a batch job once a day, with time zone differences then adding multi-day delays when going through several banks, transactions that gets flagged for manual screening, etc. In Europe (with SEPA) the problem is solved by going via ECB, but by only having one currency, the problem is made much simpler, just like majority of countries already offer instant domestic transfers.

One option is to create a trust with you as beneficiary, that way, you don’t directly own the money. But you are probably liable for tax on anything you receive from this trust. I know taxes suck, but seriously, consider if it is really worth committing a crime to avoid it, and if you setup some convoluted structure, you will have recurring fees to keep this stuff running, and the more money, the more expensive it tends to be. Furthermore, if your country have high tax rates, I’m guessing the punishment for committing tax fraud is also high.

But central banks only cover a single region, how can a CBDC allow moving money in and out of this region? Also, I know we have many people talking about CBDC, but I just don’t understand what they mean. Quite sure that balances with central banks are not backed by physical cash.

First thing to do in a situation like this is to ask the counter party to document their claim. If they actually had a signed contract with your GF/wife stating the terms of the debt etc. then they have a pretty strong claim, otherwise it’s probably just bluff. Also, I hope she got some sort of proof that she has now settled this debt in full.

I just remembered there is the Danske Bank money laundering scandal with their branch in Estonia, and involving (amongst others) Latvia. Given the size of this, regulation and oversight might become tighter in the affected countries.

How would this affect corporations set up using nominee shareholders? Some offerings I have seen include nominee shareholders, but with some undated contract for transfer of shares at a symbolic price, so that the “true owner” can always reclaim all the shares. But then, I have also seen terms such as “true beneficiary”, which I assume is to mean “who is the true owner”, and with the existence of an unused transfer contract, it would probably be hard to be 100% in the clear by putting in the name of the nominee shareholder(s).

You forgot Cyprus, which is EU, but definitely on a “hot” list, at least according to my bank, which told me after I received money from there ???? No experience with Eastern Europe or money laundering per se, but for banking “comfort” I would definitely take Luxembourg over Cyprus, ignoring the previous banking crisis in Cyprus and the following nationalization of a major bank, plus 1-2 years with currency control, the banking system in my experience seems antiquated, i.e. needing to courier or fax documents, execute trades through your financial advisor, etc. and of course all this makes banking more expensive. Luxembourg OTOH was all digital when I opened an account there in 2006 or so, with currency accounts, stock trading, international transfers (free for SEPA countries up to €50,000), etc. For hiding money, there is also Delaware, but the U.S. banking system is also a bit antiquated, especially when it comes to moving money around, and I think you can only open a U.S. corporate account (as a foreign resident) if you show up in person. All that said, for hiding money, I would look more at corporate structure than which country you setup banking with. Countries are being pressured into joining CRS, and you have all these leaks (you only hear a fraction about this in the media, but the tax authorities in Europe prune these leaked documents to find potential tax evasion).

Then you will also have a problem withdrawing money from Interactive Brokers. But if you are a US resident account holder, you can apply for their debit Mastercard.